WASHINGTON (AP) - An environmental group is taking the Bush administration to court
over its decision to suspend tighter arsenic standards for drinking water that had been
adopted by former President Clinton.

The Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit Thursday against the
Environmental Protection Agency and its administrator, Christie Whitman, for ignoring a
June 22 congressional deadline for having a new plan to reduce arsenic levels.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and several of her Democratic colleagues - including
Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles Schumer of New York, Jon Corzine of New Jersey,
Paul Wellstone of Minnesota and Harry Reid of Nevada - said they would file papers in
support of the NRDC's lawsuit.

"When Congress sets a deadline, we don't mean for it to be ignored," Boxer
said Thursday. "Clearly, what the Bush administration is doing is very harmful to the
health of our people ... and they are turning their back on the law."

The goal is to force the EPA to revert to the Clinton standard that would allow no more
than 10 parts per billion of arsenic in tap water. The current standard is 50 ppb.

The twin actions, alleging the administration violated provisions of the Safe Drinking
Water Act and the Administrative Procedures Act by suspending the Clinton standard, are to
be filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Erik D. Olson, a senior attorney with the NRDC, whose prior lawsuits have pushed the
EPA to obey deadlines, said Bush's action threatens the health of millions of Americans.

"There is absolutely no scientific or legal excuse for delaying or weakening
protection of the public from arsenic," he said. "It's clear that the Bush
administration is simply thumbing its nose at Congress and at the law by suspending this
important arsenic protection."

Last fall, Congress amended the 1974 Safe Water Drinking Act and ordered the EPA to
adopt a new arsenic standard by this summer.

Clinton announced the 10 ppb standard three days before leaving office in January. But
the Bush administration suspended it until next February, leaving in place at least for
the meantime the current 50 ppb arsenic standard established in 1942.

The administration has said the EPA doesn't have enough evidence to justify the $200
million annual cost to municipalities, states and industry of meeting the Clinton standard
by 2006.

Whitman spokeswoman Tina Kreisher said the EPA still will set a new arsenic standard
for communities to comply with starting five years from now.

"We are not missing the important deadlines," she said. "The earliest
compliance date is in 2006 and we will not miss that date. A new, lower standard than the
50 ppb will be in place."

Whitman has asked the National Academy of Sciences to study the risk factors involved
in setting the standard at anywhere from 3 ppb to 20 ppb. She also has convened an EPA
working group to study costs to local communities.